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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28680243">Listening Post</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollisionTheory/pseuds/CollisionTheory'>CollisionTheory</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>ARC Troopers (Star Wars), Assisted Suicide, Battle Droids (Star Wars), Canon-Typical Violence, Mentioned Pong Krell, Original Character Death(s), Pre-Umbara Arc (Star Wars: Clone Wars)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:21:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,259</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28680243</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollisionTheory/pseuds/CollisionTheory</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>General Krell's 93rd Legion borrows ARCs Fives and Echo for a mission on Mygeeto. Things go south, but not for them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo &amp; CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Echo&amp;Fives</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Listening Post</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>11 January 2021 edit: I originally left this on a cliff-hanger but decided to give it a proper ending.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Echo vaulted through the half-open access port high up on the cliffside listening post, sticking a landing just behind Fives. Spotting the control panel, he moved off to the side to begin rewiring the port shut while Fives stood guard, helmet scanning for droid signatures all over the electromagnetic spectrum.</p><p>An alarm suddenly blared out from somewhere near the base of the post, flaring out across the chilly landscape of Mygeeto.</p><p>The two ARCs looked at each other.</p><p>“Well it’s not us…” said Echo, pausing the operation on the metal door.</p><p>Fives briefly checked back down the access tunnel again before turning back towards his friend.</p><p>“I’ll go check it out.”</p><p>Echo wordlessly reattached the wiring tool to his belt and crouched down in front of the horizontal open space high in the access port. He held out his cupped hands, then slowly stood to push Fives up towards the gap once the trooper had stepped into his open palms. Fives pulled himself over the metal ledge with ease, then kept his posture low as he took stock of the situation down on the ground.</p><p>He cycled through various HUD modes and targeting screens with a series of blinks and taps to the helmet as Echo turned back around to watch for anything unusual down the tunnel.</p><p>Fives zoomed in, frowning. A plume of white smoke rose into the iron grey sky some distance away.  </p><p>“Squad of vulture droids just flew out of the hangar, formation of commando droids on speeders comin’ up right behind them…”</p><p>“Direction?” asked Echo.</p><p>“Hold on…hold o- ah, kriff. They split up, heading south and southeast.”</p><p>“What? South<em>east</em>?” he spun his head around to face Fives as his brother dropped back down from the ledge.</p><p>“Yeah. The Seppies know. Don’t know how, but they do. Or if they don’t already, they will soon.”</p><p>“The 93<sup>rd</sup>’s about to get flanked…” Echo shook his head, sighing heavily as he went to work on the door control panel again.</p><p>Neither of them could do anything about it. They’d gone dark for the mission; warning the legion was impossible, and they still had a job to do at the listening post.</p><p>The access port closed with a groan of metal as Echo finished.</p><p>Fives unholstered his deecees, spinning one in his hand.</p><p>“Well come on Echo- let’s blow this signal tower.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>CT-3900 ran across the icy ground, boots crunching chunks of frozen mud as he rounded the massive rock formation that disguised the rendezvous point. Everyone was there, all in identical white armor, waiting for him.</p><p>He recognized the sergeant by the specific pattern of nicks in his kit.</p><p>“Got it done, 2542!” he announced triumphantly as he skidded to a halt in front of the clone. He took a deep breath and rested his hands on his hips.</p><p>The sergeant nodded with satisfaction.</p><p>“Good. Now let’s-“</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Boom.</em> </strong>
</p><p>CT-2542 flinched backwards, turning with the rest of his men to see a cloud of white smoke roiling up from where the CIS equipment they were meant to have been tapping for intel <em>used</em> to be located.</p><p>He clenched his fists and lowered his head as he slowly turned back around to face the man in front of him.</p><p>“Corporal CT-3900…. what did you just<em> do?</em>”</p><p>The color drained from his face.</p><p>CT-3900 had just made what might have been the biggest mistake of his life.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Headless B1 droids lay sparking on the ground beneath their feet. The ARCs had dropped in on their small room, dispatching them without firing a single shot. It was almost too easy- Fives was a little disappointed.</p><p>He hit a few buttons and flicked down the options on a control board screen while Echo’s burner datapad was streaming info from a neighboring console.</p><p>“Alright, the power comes on again in twelve,” announced Fives as he finished, looking up from the panel.</p><p>Echo didn’t move, still pouring through station schematics and logs of data readings.</p><p>“Hm, wait…I want to try something.”</p><p>Fives could imagine his studied expression, brows screwed up in concentration as his gloved fingers lightly pushed around holos of the station’s power grid and charts of historical output ratings.  </p><p>“I’ve been wanting to test this ever since-” he continued softly, cut-off by Fives finishing his sentence.</p><p>“Ever since you read about it three weeks ago?” guessed Fives with a fifty-fifty on whether he was completely serious or not at all.  </p><p>“Four, but yes.”</p><p>Five moved over beside Echo, peering down at the datapad and raising an eyebrow beneath the helmet.</p><p>“Think we can do it in twelve minutes?”</p><p>Echo looked him right in the face. Fives could practically see his eyes flash.</p><p>“I <em>know</em> we can do it in six.”</p><p>“Explain.”      </p><p>They both grinned as they snuck back into the access hatch, Echo leading the way.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>He whistled lazily high up on the overlook, improvising a tune as his scout training ran on autopilot while he peered through the electrobinoculars.  The turbo tanks were advancing as before- still lookin’ good.</p><p>This really <em>was</em> nothing like the simulations. Turns out war was mostly boring, but randomly punctuated with intense moments of violence that shattered your internal sense of how long those moments actually lasted.</p><p>Then in an instant, the tedium of his day flipped over completely. He punched open a comm line, throwing up his wrist to direct his voice straight into the source.</p><p>
  <em>“This is Dorn to Aurek! Squad of vulture droids on vector for a strafing run through sector M-9!” </em>
</p><p>The connection on the other end opened to transmit. There was a static crunch, then the briefest moment of silence.</p><p>“<em>Roger, roger</em>” replied the deep voice of a commando droid before it crushed the dead Aurek scout’s comlink beneath its feet.</p><p>
  
</p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Their ascension hooks retracted back into their pistols with a hiss as Fives and Echo cleared the chasm and dropped to the rocky ground. They were on their way back to camp, momentarily hiding out in the ruins of a temple that had been ransacked and destroyed by the Separatists.  </p><p>“Okay, 30 seconds.” Echo peered out from behind a chunk of rubble, eyes pointed up at the prominent signal tower whose outside was ringed in walkways for daily droid maintenance in the freezing wind.</p><p>“Out of the way Echo, you’re too tall- I can’t see.”</p><p>Echo snorted as Fives mock-shoved his side.</p><p>They stood beside each other until the moment came.</p><p>For a minute, nothing happened, but Echo had mentioned this, so Fives kept watching. Then the signal tower turned reddish beneath the spiraling walkways, then a bright red that transitioned to blazing yellow and searing white.</p><p>Fives zoomed in with his HUD, software adjusting for the brightness to show the signal tower melting down and collapsing within the cage of its walkways. He laughed as he saw what was unfolding.</p><p>With some manipulation and rerouting of the power system, they’d converted the entire apparatus above the listening post into a giant induction heating coil with the antenna at its center. Desperately fleeing droids were snap-welded to the spot until they melted down completely as the heat spread around them with the collapsing tower. Then the molten antenna burned downwards with a resounding shudder. It melted and cracked through the layers of the listening post, continuing until it hit part of a reservoir of stored fuel cores at its base for the aircraft hangar. The spherical outside of the post burst as the whole place broke open in a ball of flame and black smoke, the massive metal plates peeling off in slices like an exploding segmented fruit.</p><p>The destruction was magnificent.</p><p><em>Eat your heart out, Hardcase. </em>      </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The hulking B2s advanced steadily through a hail of blaster fire and exploding clods of icy dirt. They headed towards the fire team, now shielded by the wreckage of what had recently been the 93<sup>rd</sup>’s fourth remaining turbo tank out of quite a few more than only four.</p><p>CT-2881 knocked one down with a shot from his rifle, then ducked behind cover as another B2- supported by a volley of suppressive fire from a cluster of B1s- spread its arms open to release a rapid spray of red blaster fire towards them.</p><p>He looked up, clutching the gun against his body. His other three team members had also ducked, but CT-3900 was still firing <em>and</em> somehow still alive. Two shots glanced off the trooper’s shoulder plate, knocking him back a little and singeing his armor.</p><p>CT-2881 growled, pushing himself off the ground just enough to yank the corporal back to the ground.</p><p>“<em>Hey!</em> <em>Head in the game, brother! Head in the game!</em>” he yelled through the close-range helmet com system over the battle noise.</p><p>A wrist rocket hurtled a foot above CT-3900’s head, puncturing the air where the clone had been standing moments before.</p><p>His hands had been shaking earlier. He’d missed shots that even a B1 could probably make. He had been pulled or shoved out of death’s reach twice now, all in a battle he was the direct cause of. Most of the tanks were gone. The borrowed 501<sup>st</sup> ARCs would do their jobs, <em>but most of their tanks were gone</em> and General Krell <em>needed those tanks </em>and they were now <em>gone<strong>.</strong></em></p><p>Something thrown by mortar fire struck CT-2881 in the side of the head, knocking him out. He slumped to the muddy ground, hands still clutching his weapon.</p><p>He was lucky. When the commando droid hurtled over their twisted barricade, it slashed through the hard shell and soft body of the four other clones behind it, but not him.</p><p>Someone eventually came for him and the barely conscious, heavily bleeding CT-3900. Someone in a kama who executed the commando droid and two others, then another someone just like him who dispatched the remaining B2s and tossed a droid popper into a scuttle of B1s.</p><p>Both were painted blue.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>CT-3900 couldn’t remember if he’d come to in the field hospital, or if he’d ever been out at all. His chest rattled and his blacks felt welt and sticky. It still smelled like the battlefield all around him, like acrid, burnt plastoid. He blinked back tears. He liked his armor; it was his, and he had almost nothing else that was uniquely <em>him</em> like that set of armor, scratches and dings and all.</p><p>Something metallic pooled around his tongue. It mixed thickly with the saliva in his mouth which he swallowed to keep from bubbling out the corners of his lips. He ached everywhere except in his left leg where he felt nothing at all. He knew why but refused to look down and check; his heart galloped as though trying to flee the thought.</p><p>He tried to move, but the pain was too much. He passed out again, eyes fading over a face that screamed at him not to do it, not to close his eyes. Hands gripped him, and something jabbed into his arm. That made him feel better, but he needed to speak.  </p><p>Fives and Echo stood close by. They were the ones who’d found him. Two medics were also there, scrambling over CT-3900 and doing everything they could. One listed out all the things that the corporal needed that he couldn’t give him, not until he got aboard a star destroyer or medical frigate. The other kept checking the man’s face, watching for signs that he’d stay awake as he worked on him.</p><p>The painkiller injection had done some good. The clone’s eyes were open now, warm brown in a face that was paler than it should’ve been. He grabbed the hand of the medic who’d been searching his face, squeezing it into a fist as he tried to finally speak.   </p><p>“Rook…m…my leg…g-give…” he whispered, gulping the words down with another mouthful of coppery saliva.</p><p>Rook was instantly riveted by his batchmate speaking his name. How long had it been? Once they got off Kamino so long ago, Krell had turned them back into numbers.</p><p>He gripped the man’s hand back, leaning into him a bit as he spoke just as quietly.</p><p>“I’ve got you brother, I’ve got you. We’ll- we’ll fix you, just need to get you onto a ship.”</p><p>“No,” he croaked, shaking his head. “Krell coming back… lost…so many tanks… all mine. My fault. Just w-”</p><p>The second medic spoke, sealing a bacta patch over where they’d have to amputate the leg later.</p><p>“Be quiet. You need to rest. You <em>will</em> get through this if we can get you aboard in time, I promise.”   </p><p>“He won’t al-… al-...” Rook swallowed again, Adam’s apple swollen as it traveled up and down his throat. “When he knows…leg…no use for me…and tanks- gone.”</p><p>“Crane he told you to stop talking- stop talking, don’t say that,” muttered Rook. His speech was low and quick, like he was talking more to himself. His muscles were tense around the dying man’s hand, kneading and squeezing his palm in his fist.   </p><p>The other medic rubbed his temples, eyes held shut. He accidentally pressed blood into his cheek.</p><p>Who was he kidding? This man didn’t have an hour, much less half that time. And Krell had no use for men missing limbs, for men who’d lost them such crucial equipment...</p><p>When he finally spoke, he made a concerted effort to speak very calmly as he hovered close to Crane at the side of his bed.</p><p>“The transports can’t get here within an hour. Krell will come back. Crane, please tell us....” he sighed, “just say what you want us to d-”</p><p>“No!” snapped Rook, “<em>shut</em> <em>up</em>.”  He spun his torso towards the other medic and looked at him as though he dared him to speak.</p><p>Crane’s eyes darted to the small surgical table at the side of his bed where the rest of the vial of painkiller lay, nodding when he knew he’d been understood as the other man picked it up.</p><p>Echo was silent. He worked through the same scene in his mind with completely different people, though it wasn’t that different at all.</p><p>Fives stepped forward, rounding on the second medic.</p><p>“What the kriff do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, voice tinged with disgust. “I’ve seen men survive wor-”</p><p>“<em>You</em> may be lucky enough to be in the karking 501<sup>st</sup>” the medic jabbed a finger at Fives “but that’s not true for <em>all of us</em>, is it!”</p><p>His mouth went dry as his voice rose, taught with frustration and the bitter feeling of a hopeless, futile struggle as he continued to address the ARC. Krell had always found a way to execute or discard men he had no use for; it was easy because they weren’t men at all. Crane would never be allowed onto a medical transport, and Krell would have no interest in expending resources on someone he’d likely label a saboteur and traitor for the lost intel and tank debacle.</p><p>The best thing to do for their brother would be to let Crane have the final choice- <em>any</em> final choice he wanted.</p><p>Rook looked trapped, one hand on his forehead with his elbow on his knee as the other still gripped his batchmate’s hand as he tried to rest, his breathing finally stabilized by the medical quick fixes. Eventually he dropped his hand from his temple and held Crane’s shoulder instead. He asked his brother if that’s what he really wanted, and the man said yes. So Rook would help him, one last time.</p><p>Fives’ mind turned over dozens of possibilities, wondering which other fleets were in the area, if they could hide him for a while, whether his general or another could manage anything, whether Skywalker could prevent the sword from coming down over their necks should they do anything very Skywalker-like to save Crane, and more.</p><p>He didn’t know what to do.</p><p>He turned to look at Echo for the answer, and Echo looked over to Crane.  </p><p>“Echo, I- we can’t let him die.” His statement almost turned into a plea as he stepped forward, closer to his brother.</p><p>Echo calmly fixed Fives’ eyes with his own, jaw and brow set in a firm decision.</p><p>“No. No, we can’t let Krell get away with this!” Fives clenched a fist, throwing out his words more loudly than he meant to.</p><p>Rook and the medic reflexively twitched towards the door, and someone else got up from beside a bed and hurriedly left the room, cursing at Fives as he crossed the threshold.</p><p>Fives grabbed Echo’s upper arm, trying to pull him off to the side.</p><p>“We’ll take a ship ourselves and fly him up to the <em>Venator</em> in orbit, then we–</p><p>Echo pushed his brother’s hand off his shoulder and shut his eyes for a moment, shaking his head.</p><p>“And what happens to the actual assigned pilot, Fives? The ground crew we’d take the ship from?” His voice was serious. “<em>We</em> might get away with it because Krell sees us as General Skywalker’s property for him to punish, but anyone in the 93<sup>rd</sup> that we implicate in this will <em>not</em>. Failing to stop us won’t be an excuse. You know that.”   </p><p>The other ARC was silent, crossing his arms in frustration as Echo continued.</p><p>“Fives– how do you know you can trust me?”</p><p>Fives looked at his brother with an exact copy of the expression that Echo had worn a while back when Fives had had a ‘moment’ and asked him, without a trace of irony, whether a kilo of beskar was heavier than a kilo of fleximetal. And like Echo had been then, context aside, Fives didn’t even know what to say.</p><p>“Right. Works the same for them too,” said Echo. He gestured with his head towards the cot, where Rook had accepted doing what he at first hadn’t wanted to because it was what his batchmate wanted and had asked for, trusting Rook to fulfill his final request.</p><p>Fives struggled with his next words, unsure how to articulate what he wanted to say. They’d been fighting all their lives– they’d been born to– and this didn’t seem like fighting. It seemed like giving up.</p><p>Echo took a moment to organize his thoughts before he spoke.</p><p>“We’re not giving up and letting him die. It’s– this isn’t how any of us thought we’d go out, but he’s going out on his own terms. Krell is <em>not</em> getting the satisfaction of treating one more brother like a broken droid, not this time.” His hand cut across the air in front of his chest in a gesture of finality.</p><p>Fives’ expression softened. He hadn’t let go of the twisted, sad feeling this gave him, but he wasn’t angry anymore.</p><p>While Echo and Fives were talking, Rook had stripped off the top half of his armor down to his blacks. He asked his brother if he was still sure he wanted this, and Crane said yes. As the medic prepared the injection, Rook shifted positions and pulled the dying man into an embrace, firm but without hurting him.</p><p>“Rook…Coruscant…you w- went planet-side…what’d it…what was it like?”</p><p>He’d never been one for too much description, but he tried his best, wanting to show Crane something striking and beautiful. He spoke low beside his brother’s ear as the other man listened, relaxing into the warmth and vibration of voice inside Rook’s chest pressed against his own. When he died, Rook still held him, and stayed with him for a long time.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Krell's legion is named for Article 93- Cruelty and maltreatment- of the US' Uniform Code of Military Justice. </p><p>Thanks to Judge1964 for corrections and coming up with the Mygeeto backdrop for this in the collaborative AU fic in the works.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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